


The Last Unicorn

by sweetNsimple



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Anthony the Last Unicorn, Character Death, Clinton the Magician, King Ross the Bad Guy, Love, M/M, Natasha the Lady Who Conspires with Cats, Nick Fury the Cat Who Conspiers with Natasha, Robert the Monster, Steven the Knight, The Last Unicorn - Freeform, Unicorn!Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A unicorn learns that he is supposedly the last of his kind, all the others having been herded into the sea by a creature called the Monster.  The unicorn sets out to free them and is joined on his quest by an amateur magician and a dangerous woman who dreamed all her life of meeting a unicorn.  Their journey leads them far to the castle of King Ross.  It is there that everything goes horribly wrong, and, somehow, perfectly right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Unicorn

It was pretty obvious for everyone to see that Steven did not like Anthony at all. And, for propriety's sake, Anthony made it as apparent as possible that he could not stand Steven in turn.

 

The dilemma was that Anthony wanted nothing more than to rest his head on Steven's lap and be lulled to sleep by his voice, the same tone of voice he had used to soothe the family's one-eyed cat. Not that that little devil ever needed any soothing, it was perpetually irritated.

 

Anthony felt such a swell of emotion that he had to ask Clinton and Natasha to identify it for him: Envy. He envied that damnable cat. He envied that cat the chance to share in Steven's warmth and listen to his voice without it rising into a yell and lowering into a half-whispered curse.

 

Damn that cat. Damn him to death.

 

And damn King Ross as well, that perverse old man.

 

“How is it,” Ross began, one hand like an iron band around Anthony's wrist, “that I can see my reflection in your eyes now? When the last time I looked, I saw nothing but wilderness.”

 

Anthony sneered at him and twisted himself free. “Perhaps you are are distracted by other things,” and he pointedly glared at the man's crotch. “And thinking with other things.”

 

And then he strode away, rather quickly, and did not let his fear and rage show till he was out of sight and hidden.

 

Anthony feared, completely, that he was turning into exactly what he appeared to be: a _human_. He curled his hands, his five-fingered, fleshy hands, to his chest, and closed his eyes against the strange form of muscle and skin that was so foreign and yet becoming so familiar to him.

 

He tried to remember what he had once been, tried to remember the soil and greenery flying by, the skies nothing but a blur of shades of blue and gray that darkened into night and clouds, tried to recall perfectly the taste of painted wind on his tongue, the cold, emotionless blanket of forever, _and could recall none of it_ , not as if _he_ had been the one to live it, but some other creature whose mind he shared with pathetic and dull interest. It was all so distant now, so nearly out of reach, and he clenched his jaw against the panic – the damned _panic_ – that rose up.

 

“This is just pitiful. Pity at its greatest,” said a deep voice. Anthony nearly jumped and twisted his head to stare down at none other than the accursed cat Fury. The mangled, black beast shook its head distastefully at Anthony. “Is this really the last unicorn in the world? The last chance those other poor fools have? Might as well raise our white flag now, you will certainly not prevail against someone as strong an opponent as King Ross and his Monster.”

 

“Of course you now feel the right to talk,” Anthony growled. “And of course you only say the most unhelpful things possible.”

 

“ _Un_ helpful? If you must be so _un_ grateful, then maybe I should just pick myself up and go without giving you any help whatsoever.”

 

“What help would have you to offer anyway!”

 

Fury glowered at him with his one eye. “All the help you and your lost band of idiots need.”

 

“I know you like them,” Anthony said. “You purr whenever Natasha feeds you more than King Ross wants and you let Clinton touch your ears.”

 

“They are not too bad of humans. Unlike you. You are a sorry disgrace of a human. I do not even want to lay claim to you.”

 

“Because a cat would claim humans as their pets.”

 

Fury's tail twitched. “We always do.”

 

“Well, if you feel like there is something you can share that will help us, then tell me.”

 

“I've lost the will.”

 

“You have not, you are simply an arse.”

 

“Are you talking to the _cat_?”

 

Standing down the corridor from them, watching, was none other than Prince Steven, King Ross's adopted son. The knight stared at Anthony as if he was the strangest creature he had ever laid eyes on.

 

And he didn't even know that Anthony was not the creature he appeared to be. Or, at least, he _hadn't_ been. Now, though, feeling his body die slowly around him, having these _emotions_ that were raw and powerful and made a mockery of anything Anthony had ever before felt he might have expressed, he was... changing. And it was all for the worse.

 

Fury growled low in his throat. “It appears our time is up for the day. Just let me say –” he twitched his ear toward Steven. “The help you need is the Monster you seek.”

 

Then, as royal as he possibly could be, he picked himself off the stone floor and stalked off, as if he was a cat ten times bigger than he looked and that much more dangerous.

 

Anthony scowled after him.

 

“I asked you a question, were you talking to the cat?” Steven asked again, marching towards him.

 

Anthony looked up at him. “Do you not talk to the cat?”

 

“No!”

 

“That explains why you must like him so much.” Anthony took his first good look at where he had barricaded himself. He was crouched at the beginning of a closed off corridor, blockaded with large rubble and rubbish that looked like broken tables and chairs too damp to be used for firewood.

 

“Men can not speak to animals, that is witchcraft,” Steven told him.

 

“Yet your father hired a magician for entertainment.”

 

“It is only entertainment!”

 

“Then maybe you should know the truth!” He shot to his feet. “I am no man!”

 

Steven took a step back, face shocked and white. “By God, you can not possibly be a woman!”

 

“No, I am not that either.” Anthony opened his mouth to explain, then thought better of it. He owed Steven no explanation. “Actually, yes. I am a woman.”

 

“You lie!”

 

“Can you prove that I am not?”

 

Steven blinked. “You have hair on your chin, and the face of a man, and the body of a man. Therefore, you are a man.”

 

“How dare you call me so ugly that I look nothing like a woman!” Tony screeched. Then he began stomping away. “Why, I have never met a human so cruel before!”

 

Hearing Steven sputter behind him, Tony felt something else human curling up warm and bubbly from the pit of his stomach – laughter. He carefully swallowed it down and kept it where only he could feel it – in his human heart, that was red and beat to the drums of time.

 

~::~

 

“The cat spoke to me.”

 

Clinton, the poor, useless magician, accidentally turned the live rabbit in his hands into... another rabbit, only blue this time instead of white. Natasha gave Anthony a fairly unimpressed look.

  
“The cat has been speaking to me for days,” she said.

 

Now Anthony was the one to look unimpressed. “Well, did he give _you_ any riddles on how to solve this mess?”

 

She narrowed her eyes. “We were busy speaking of other things.”

 

“Knowin' the temperament of a cat and you?” Clinton proposed. He snorted. “The world'll soon be comin' to an end.”

 

“We were not planning the end of the world,” she retorted. But then did not say what they had spoken of and spitefully kept her eyes off of Clinton and on Anthony. “What riddle did he give you?”

 

Anthony waved his hand airily. “ _The help you need is the Monster you seek_.”

 

The silence was deep and thoughtful for a moment.

 

“So we need to find the Monster,” Clinton said.

 

“That is a horrible idea,” Natasha replied.

 

“Is there any _other_ idea?” Anthony asked.

 

“Any other idea for what?” asked Steven as he came into the kitchen. He glanced at Clinton. “Why did you turn that rabbit blue?”

 

Clinton's fingers twitched in the blue rabbit's fur. “Gives it a different sort of flavor.”

 

Steven stared. “Does it?”

 

Clinton looked down. “We'll not know till we try.”

 

Natasha slapped her wooden spoon down on Anthony's hand when he reached to save the rabbit.

 

Steven, eyebrows raised, turned towards Anthony. “Why do I always find you in the middle of trouble?”

 

“How do you know I am in the middle of trouble?” He rubbed his sore hand and scowled. “What if I were outside of it? What if I was actually innocent of all the trouble you believed me to be a part of?”

 

“That would be a lie because the truth would mean that someone else fed ice to the dragon that _lived_ down in the caverns and turned its fire into a winter's breeze.”

 

“Oh, I did that for the sake of everyone here, I do not see why you hold it against me.”

 

“ _I_ am the knight of this castle,” Steven ground out. “You are the guest, the, the...” He swallowed thickly and looked away. “You have yet to answer my question of what you need an idea for.”

 

“I am suddenly much more concerned about what you were going to say.”

 

“Anthony,” Natasha intervened. “Stop this. He might be able to help.”

 

“Help _how_? By being pretty?”

 

Steven rolled his eyes. “Contrary to _your_ belief, I am a fairly intelligent human being of remarkable strategy. You can not believe that this castle has stood for so long with its legends without many warriors coming to kill us.”

 

Anthony came to stand just before Steven. “What do you see? When you look at me, when you see into my eyes, what do you see?”

 

Steven's bright blue eyes searched and softened, and Anthony knew he had not found what Anthony had wanted him to before he even opened his mouth to answer. “A man, Anthony. A... if I might not be too forward... a beautiful man.”

 

Clinton choked. “I _knew_ it.”

 

Anthony had not. “Does every man in this castle favor cock?” he cried out.

 

“Only every man?” Natasha asked to clarify.

 

Clinton raised his hand. “I do not favor cock.”

 

“No more lies from you, magician!” Tony snapped.

 

Steven was flushed red. “I went too far. This is why I can not talk to you! Why every time I am around you, we dissolve into arguments and fights. You are just...” Cautiously, he reached out and touched Anthony, rubbed strands of his silver hair between his fingers and caressed the corner of his mouth. Anthony stood still for all of it, simply because he could not make himself move from Steven's hand. The allure was too strong.

 

“You are a strangely beautiful man,” Steven whispered, “and I swore when I first saw you that there was something otherworldly in you.”

 

“Do you still see something otherworldly in me?” Anthony asked, almost desperate to know.

 

Steven smiled. “No, not in you. You are, entirely, otherworldly.”

 

Anthony stared, and wondered at the strange emotions in Steven's eyes, and why his mortal heart was dancing so strangely and making him feel so breathless.

 

“This can not end well.”

 

The words brought him back into the present where Steven's hand had cupped his cheek. He tore himself free and spun to face the sea, moving to the balcony outside the kitchen.

 

Clinton's voice still reached him there. “Prince Steven, there is no future in that. Not for the both of you.”

 

“How would you know? Can you see the future now?”

 

“No,” Clinton admitted. “What I do know is that Anthony is not a man.”

 

“... By God, is he actually a woman? I did not believe him –”

 

“We came here,” Natasha began, “to free the unicorns. On our way, the Monster found us.”

 

“The _Monster_ ,” Steven breathed, as if it had haunted his nightmares.

 

“Yes,” Natasha said. “Clinton used his magic to change one thing into something it was not so that the Monster would leave it be.”

 

“The Monster is a legend,” Steven tried, but his voice was strained even to Anthony's ears. “When I was a child, I dreamed of it herding unicorns into the sea where they became foam and salt water, but those were only _dreams_.”

 

“Memories,” Clinton muttered. “Those're memories, not dreams. Not even nightmares.”

 

“If it _were_ true, and those are memories, then what would the Monster want with you? What thing would you have that the Monster would come for?”

 

“The last unicorn,” Natasha told him. “The Monster has driven all of them into the sea, except for one. The Monster wants nothing to do with humans, however...”

 

“Anthony is no man,” Clinton said. “Anthony is the last unicorn and I... don't know how to make him one again.”

 

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms tightly around himself and the blue glow of his chest where the last of his magic laid. That blue, silvery glow that had once encased him, had been the shine in his mane and tail, the gleam of his sparkling hooves, the sheen of his white coat, the reflection of his long, curving horn.

 

That blue, silvery glow that was dimming by the day till, he believed, it would die as he would. Even the silver white of his hair and beard was darkening, making him into something so vulnerably and normally _human_ that he could hardly bear to look into a mirror and see the brown of his roots at his skull and chin.

 

“Surely, you jest,” Steven denied.

 

“No jesting,” Clinton said. “I only jest for your father and 'tis a job I despise with all my being. And I've worked everywhere.”

 

The silence was long again. “Leave,” Steven finally whispered. Then he added, even more softly, “please.” Anthony listened to Natasha and Clinton stand and depart.

 

A solid body came behind him, arms trapping him in.

 

“A unicorn,” Steven breathed.

 

“Were you expecting a dragon?”

 

Steven's head came to rest on his shoulder as it shook “no”. “You are not what I was told unicorns are. Unicorns are supposed to be, well, from what I have read, they are, they are not like you have shown to be.”

 

“They are shown to be pure, stoic creatures of the forest that find rest with virgin maidens?” Anthony asked. “You forget, I am only human now.”

 

“No. Even if Clinton can never change you back, I believe you will never be 'only human'.”

 

“Whatever amount of human I am, it is enough that I am losing what I was,” he said bitterly.

 

Steven spun him around and gazed into his eyes. He shuddered. “You are. You are and that... that is why you must tell me how to help you. I will do everything in my power to change you back.”

 

Anthony blinked dully at him. He raised his hand and gently brushed at the corner of Steven's eye, transfixed by the sorrow there. “Why do you grieve? I have only known you liked me for not even a day.”

 

“Just because you never knew does not mean I never felt this way before.”

 

“You certainly hid it well enough.”

 

“I could not think of the right thing to say, so I would try to think of the right thing to do, and then you were already doing it because you wanted to know if you could and you wanted to protect us from danger. So I would try again to think of what to say, but you always had the first and last word, and you arose such _fury_ in me that I had never felt before, and it only made me more mad for you because, because, Anthony – I have spent my life since losing my brother feeling frozen, lost in ice, buried and forgotten. And then you came into my life and I can remember to breathe, I have a heart,” he grabbed Anthony's hand and placed it over his chest to feel it, “that goes wild in your presence, and I had forgotten until you reminded me that I _could_ feel. That pain and love and hate and pleasure are real.”

 

“Pleasure?” Anthony asked, voice a thread of noise.

 

Steven's face became a deep shade of red before he squared his shoulders and leaned into Anthony. “I derived pleasure from thinking of you. Does that make me perverse?”

 

Despite himself, or perhaps due to his growing humanity, Anthony chuckled. “Yes, Steven, it does.” Then, before Steven's shame could become too great for the both of them to bear, he added, “I am of no mind to condemn you for it.” And he wrapped his arms around Steven's shoulders and pulled the man toward him, rubbing his cheek to Steven's and bumping noses.

 

It was now Steve's turn, after a moment of confused silence, to chuckle. “Are you showing me your affection?”

 

Anthony startled. “Is this not the way?”

 

“It is _a_ way...” Steven's hands went to his hips and gripped him sternly. “Allow me to show you _another_ way,” and he did something completely new and unheard of.

 

He put his lips on Anthony's lips, pried his mouth open with his mouth, and met him with teeth and tongue.

 

Anthony had never before felt anything so lovely.

 

~::~

 

“We thought it would be safe to return,” Clinton said once he came through the kitchen door. Natasha was a step behind him and gave Anthony a quelling look when she saw he had taken the rabbit for his own.

 

She had learned to do her killings without him present for this very reason, and he glowered back as he defensively huddled over the oblivious creature.

 

“We thought you would return,” Steven said, hands braced on the table, standing next to Anthony's stool. “I have an idea of who might know where the Monster lives.”

 

“Really?” Clinton asked.

 

“Yes.” Steven nodded. Then he paused. “I believe our groundskeeper might know.”

 

Anthony frowned up at him. “You have a groundskeeper?”

 

Natasha now frowned at Anthony. “Do you even know what a groundskeeper is?”

 

“I met a few before I found Clinton,” Anthony answered flippantly, leaving out exactly everything from when the groundskeepers had caught sight of him to when he ran away from their ropes and horses and dogs. During those adventures, he had gotten a fairly clear idea of what they were for, aside from randomly attempting to catch wild, and it still made his blood boil, _'stallions'_.

 

He was a damned _unicorn_ , not a horse! Or, he had been.

 

“How long've you had a groundskeeper,” Clinton asked.

 

Steven answered, “For as long as I can remember. He arrived just before my nightmares... before the Monster came. Father does not allow me to visit him, but I know he still resides here.”

 

“What grounds would he have to keep?” Natasha asked. “The land is barren and rocky, and no animal will come through here.”

 

“I asked him that once,” Steven said. “He smiled very sadly at me and said it was not this ground he was meant to keep.”

 

“Well, then.” Anthony got to his feet. “Where do we find him? What is his name?”

 

Steven frowned. “I believe his name is... Robert. As for where to find him, we will have to dig to find the one way I know to his hut.”

 

As it turned out, the place where they had to dig was the blockaded corridor. They all stood before it in numb silence.

 

“Is that all?” Clinton asked sarcastically. “All we have to do is move this immovable rubbish. Gods, it'd be easier to move a dragon.”

 

“It would be,” Anthony agreed easily, as that was something he had already done earlier in the week.

 

Steven glowered at him for that.

 

“It will not get done if we just stand here and stare at it,” Natasha told them. “And the longer we take, the more we risk discovery.”

 

“Then what're we waitin' for?” Clinton demanded. “Look alive!”

 

~::~  
  


The corridor was long, and it led downwards till everything was damp and dark. When it looped back up, they were not in the open air, but, instead, a cave.

 

“His hut should be... in that direction.” Steven pointed deeper into the cave instead of the direction that looked to have light at the end of it.

 

They all stared dispassionately at him.

 

“You sure?” Clinton asked. “I know no one who would live in such a place.”

 

“You have not met Robert,” Steven countered.

 

Anthony looked from Natasha to Clinton and found neither of them trusting. He felt no better for it, but he took the first step, and, as he had believed, everyone reluctantly followed.

 

Right when Anthony began to fear that there was no hut, that, perhaps, it had fallen, or its owner perished, or Steve was a traitor and him teaching Anthony to kiss had all been a lie, a small, disappointing hovel appeared in sight with a lantern hanging outside, dimly lit.

 

A figure came out, shortish and smallish, with crooked, broken spectacles perched on his nose and his hair a mass of dirty, tangled black-and-gray curls.

 

The man looked at them as if he had never seen his own kind before. Anthony watched his throat work until finally, rusty words came out.

 

“Steven? What... is going on?”

 

“Robert.” Steven stepped forward. “We must ask you – do you know where to find the Monster?”

 

He could not see well in the dark, yet he still saw how Robert paled. “I, of course not... The Monster? A legend.” He swallowed thickly. “Just... just a... legend.”

 

Steven shook his head. “We fear not.” He gripped Anthony's hand and pulled him forward. “We must find the Monster to save Anthony's kind.”

 

Robert blinked at him. “Kind?”

 

“I may not look it now,” Anthony said, “but I am the last unicorn.”

 

Robert's body did... a strange thing. It jerked, a full-body motion as if he'd been grabbed by both sides and pulled in opposite ways.

 

His body bowed and he snarled, “And you brought him _here_?”

 

“Robert,” Steven began, eyes wide. “What is going on, what is wrong? Are you ill?”

 

“You must leave!” Anthony frowned and stepped forward. He swore he had heard... “Leave NOW!”

 

He had. There were two voices speaking from the same throat, and one spoke in a beastly manner.

 

He stepped away as Robert's body rippled and his skin began to turn green. Suddenly, he knew. “YOU are the Monster!”

 

Robert threw his head back and roared. It was a pained, angry sound that echoed inside Anthony's head.

 

“We must leave!” Natasha yelled, grabbing him and Steven by their shoulders and pulling them back. “Now! Go, quickly! The Monster knows what you are, Anthony!”

 

She still somehow found time to glare balefully at Steven for that before pushing them away from the growing green man.

 

The Monster.

 

Steven tensed and planted his feet. “I am going nowhere! I will not run from this!”

 

“Then neither will I!” Anthony seconded.

 

“You will both die!” Clinton cried.

 

“I will not weep for you,” Natasha said.

 

“Yes,” Anthony disagreed, smiling at the woman who had wished to see him her entire life, who had once been innocent and new, but then had been turned into something else, something not wholly dark, yet never again a complete person. “You will.”

 

She closed her eyes and stood her ground next to him.

 

“You are all idiots,” Clinton hissed, but did not abandon them.

 

They stood there in a line as the Monster towered over them, his large chest heaving. His fists were twice as large as Anthony's head and he was so tall as to nearly touch the roof of the cave.

 

When he roared, it was like a gale wind that nearly knocked them all over. And Anthony knew, in that moment, he could not let Steven fight this battle for him.

 

He would be killed, and Anthony's mortal heart wept at the very notion.

 

He stepped in front of Steven and yelled at the Monster, “It is me you want!”

 

The Monster roared again. Steven grabbed him and cursed. “What do you think you are _doing_?”

 

“You can not have me!” Anthony screamed at the Monster. He threw himself out of Steven's reach and away, towards where he remembered the light to come into the cave.

 

The Monster yelled, “NO!” and the cave fairly shook with every thunderous leap he took, faster than Anthony had ever believed he could.

 

“ANTHONY!” he heard Steven scream, and he knew that he, Clinton, and Natasha were chasing after them.

 

This was not so different from when he had been a unicorn, he realized. When he ran, he still felt the beat of the earth beneath his feet, still pranced over the sharp, jagged edges of rocks and broken shells, still smelled the sea salt before he even saw daylight beneath the mouth of the cave. He ran, and felt his heart thundering as loudly as the Monster's footfalls, felt his lungs burn strangely, felt as if his eyes were someone else's, as if, if he were to stop, he would collapse. He had run distances ten times longer and twenty times more treacherous and had never felt exhaustion like this before.

 

He nearly tripped onto the beach, the sand churning beneath his tired feet, sinking his legs, before he made to run again.

 

“Do something!” he heard Steven yell breathlessly at Clinton.

 

And he thought, _there is nothing to be done_. Perhaps Anthony could not bring back his own kind, and the Monster's fist knocked just lightly against his flank, still sending him rolling towards the incoming surf. His left side became soaked before he forced himself back to his feet and through the Monster's spread legs. His body throbbed.

 

Perhaps Anthony could not bring back his kind, but he could protect these three people who had become precious to him somehow.

 

He stopped and breathed, felt as if he was not breathing at all, as he looked up at the Monster stalking towards him.

 

If he willingly went into the sea... Maybe the Monster would leave his friends unharmed. Maybe.

 

He swallowed thickly and took a step back into the surf for every step the Monster took towards him.

 

“NO!” Steven yelled, and a sword clashed against the Monster's calf, bouncing harmlessly off of its impenetrable green skin.

 

And that was when Anthony heard the ancient words coming towards him on the wind, tasting of sea salt and magic as they surrounded him.

 

Clinton's eyes were hazed over, blind and blue, his hands in the air, drawn as if loosing an arrow, and his mouth moved quickly and quietly, and then Anthony _saw no more_ as the magic enveloped him completely. He felt himself change.

 

He felt himself turn back. There was no pain, just the knowledge that everything felt right once more, and also that everything felt irreversibly wrong.

 

His vision cleared to the sight of Steven flying through the air and landing motionlessly in the sand, half in and half out of the sea.

 

“NO! _”_ he tried to scream, but all that came out was a shrill whinny that Steven would not understand. Only Natasha, who had waited her entire life to meet a unicorn, and Clinton the magician could understand his words. He reared back and took action, charging forward and coming between the Monster and Steven's prone body.

 

The Monster yelled deafeningly at him, braced in challenge, and Anthony did not dare give into fear and back away. The Monster had already harmed – not killed, he could not _possibly_ be dead – Steven and Anthony would not make the fool's mistake of leaving him undefended!

 

His superior hearing heard Natasha hiss, “What is magic for if not to save a unicorn!”

 

Clinton answered, defeated, “That... was what heroes were for.”

 

The Monster's nostrils flared and he reached one hand forward, almost gently, except Anthony could not see any gentleness in the Monster that had attacked Steven.

 

He reared back with a battlecry and then lunged, burying his horn deep into the Monster's might chest. The Monster froze, and a near peaceful look came over its large, square face.

 

That was when everything turned bright and colorful, as if he had stepped into a rainbow.

 

He heard screams of his and Steven's names, and then no more. Wherever he looked, there were greens and oranges and reds, violets and indigos, blues and yellows.

 

“Hello,” a voice said behind him. He twisted his neck to look over his rump at the man who had spoken.

 

It was Robert, except he did not look so filthy and tired. He stood taller, was broader, and his curls, while tousled, were not so filthy.

 

Robert smiled, and it warmed Anthony's heart.

 

His immortal heart.

 

“What did I do?” Anthony asked. “What did you do? Why are we here?”

 

“You killed the Monster,” Robert answered honestly. “He, I – _we_ never meant to harm anyone, least of all the unicorns. I never meant to. I lived in a castle a long time ago with my father, who was an evil man. An old woman once came to our door and begged to stay the night in one of our guest rooms to get out of the storm. I knew my father would killer her if I let her in, and be horrible to me again, so I turned her away, even when she tried to give me a rose as payment, the only thing she had with her. When I denied her again, she turned into an enchantress and cursed me, as she believed that there was no kindness in my heart. She said that I would live on till the day a unicorn ended my life, but that I would turn into a horrible beast whenever I even heard the word 'unicorn', and that their fear of me would have me chase them to the edge of the earth.”

 

“That is horrible,” Anthony said. “Why did you not simply avoid unicorns? An eternity is not so deplorable, I have lived one.”

 

Robert breathed in deeply. “The Monster would also come out whenever I felt love towards another and endanger them. I hated him, myself, for it. I roamed the world and looked for a unicorn that would not run away, and found nothing except men who wished to use me for my rage. King Ross at last took me in, but only because he felt the world was better off without unicorns.”

 

“We will take care of him,” Anthony decided. “But what do we do now to bring the unicorns back?”

 

Robert smiled, and it hurt Anthony somehow to see how happy and sad he looked all at once. “I must go into the sea,” he said. “And I must not come out.”

 

“You will drown!”

 

“I am already dying,” he said. “And death will not be so bad. I have not aged since I was cursed, and no weapon has even scarred me. I have longed for death for nearly two centuries.”

 

The sympathy Anthony felt was strange and human and he did not know how to handle it. “You are a brave, good man.”

 

Robert chuckled. “I am no such thing, but I thank you for thinking so.”

 

“This is strangely easy,” Anthony told him. “The part where you die so that unicorns can inhabit the earth once again, and death is actually something you want.”

 

“Is it not good,” Robert asked, “to have an easy victory here and there?”

 

“Is it?” Anthony retorted, and remembered Steven's still body in the surf. That had not been easy at all.

 

“This was no easy victory for me. Now that it has happened, however... Yes. Yes, it is very good.” Robert's expression was as peaceful as the Monster's had been in that last moment.

 

Anthony paused and looked around himself. “How do we get back to the others?”

 

Robert carefully reached out, as if afraid and awed and in love all at once, and stroked his hand through Anthony's silvery mane. “We walk, I suppose.”

 

Anthony was loathe to offer, yet he still felt as if he should. “I could let you on my back.”

 

Robert swallowed thickly. “It would be the greatest honor.”

 

“You will give your life for my kind,” Anthony said. “It is the least I can do.”

 

Robert spoke slowly, “Then I shall give you a gift... Or, or a curse, I suppose, in turn, something that I believe you will want, unlike myself. It is the least _I_ can do.”

 

~::~  
  


They walked... back into their bodies.

 

Anthony awoke with a gasp, rising to his four hooves and shaking sand from his fur.

 

The Monster groaned, shrunk, twisted, broke, and the green tint left its flesh to leave behind simply Robert. Robert looked at him once and then began to crawl into the sea.

 

“Anthony!” Clinton was suddenly there and Natasha on his other side, both wearily watching Robert struggle. Anthony shrugged them off with a flick of his tail and walked forward. He lowered his head and Robert smiled with bloody teeth as he wrapped an arm around Anthony's slim neck and was pulled to his feet.

 

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked, pulling a dagger from beneath her skirts and holding it on Robert.

 

“He was cursed,” Anthony told her, taking slow, short steps into the sea with Robert clinging to him. “And now he is not.”

 

Clinton frowned, then huffed. “Good enough for me.” And he took up Robert's other side, hefting his weight onto his shoulders.

 

Robert coughed. Blood spurted from his destroyed chest. “Thank... you...”

 

“Natasha?” Anthony called, glancing back over his shoulder. She remained on the sand, just beneath the sea's touch. “Please stay with Steven.”

 

Natasha stared at him and then nodded. “I will.”

 

“Come,” Robert breathed, “We must... keep going.”

 

Anthony watched Natasha crowd over Steven, pulling him onto the beach. They kept walking into the sea till Anthony could barely even touch the floor. The waves threatened to brush him and Clinton away.

 

Robert simply laughed, a relieved, sobbing noise, and closed his eyes as he let them go. He sank beneath the water, as if it was bottomless, and disappeared.

 

The waves suddenly became ferocious and leading all at once, pushing Clinton and Anthony mercilessly back to the beach till they washed up next to Natasha and Steven. Anthony stumbled to stand protectively between the humans and the surf.

 

The foam that crested the waves began to take shape, and the waves began to swell and dive into the beach from greater and greater heights until they stood twice as tall as even the Monster had, and from their heights, the foam began to leap and land on the beach as living, breathing _unicorns_.

 

Anthony watched them gallop away, as the waves reached and reached until they toppled the tower, and never did the waves touch them, but everything around them. The herd of unicorns took no notice of their presence and ran for what they had known, for what Anthony had once known: the wilderness, their home.

 

He could know it again, and his hooves began to move to follow, to join them. Then he remembered.

 

 _Steven_.

 

He twisted his head around and did not see the waves tear King Ross's tower down and drag it down into a watery grave. Natasha's and Clinton's eyes reflected the destruction and the rebirth of what was an evil king and a magical creature.

 

Steven's blue eyes were closed, and he laid so perfectly still that Anthony feared the worst.

 

Anthony sighed and lowered his head till the tip of his horn touched over Steven's chest, above where Steven's heart rested. There was a spark, and he knew he had not been too late, and then there arose the beautiful melody of Steven dragging air into his lungs.

 

He awoke with a groan and to Clinton's and Natasha's relieved expressions. Steven clutched at his head. “What has happened? Where am...” he caught sight of Anthony. “I...” He blinked for a long moment, then reached out. “Anthony?”

 

Anthony nodded and dipped his velvety nose into Steven's palm.

 

Steven chuckled wetly. “You really are a unicorn.”

 

Anthony nodded.

 

“My God.” Steven breathed in deeply and then released Anthony. “You are free to go now. Free to return to your own home. To run through eternity.”

 

Anthony raised his head and shook it once.

 

“What do you mean?” Steven asked. “You are! You are free! Go! Join your own kind!”

 

Anthony shook his head again and then reached for the presence in the back of his mind. This body did not feel love, did not feel regret or pain, but it did not feel _alive_ either.

 

When his body changed and he stood before them as a naked human being, that was when he felt alive, when he felt the aches of the Monster's abuse, when he felt love for Steven and affection for Clinton and Natasha, when he felt the pain of knowing that Steven had been nearly dead, the relief that he had not been dead, when he felt sorrow for knowing that he would never be like the other unicorns.

 

“I can never join them again,” he told them, slightly enjoying their shocked expressions. “My heart is immortal again, but it was mortal, and it feels mortal things. I can not go back to being like them, knowing what I know now, having felt what I felt, having done what I have done. I do not _want_ to go back.”

 

“How did you do that?” Clinton asked.

 

“Robert, he gave me his curse. Or, for me, a gift. He gave me his ability to shapeshift. However, since he was merely human and I am already a magical being, the laws are a bit different.” He smiled impishly. “Because I am unique in all matters.”

 

“That you are,” Steven agreed dryly. “What does it all mean?” Steven reached out slowly, hand a mere breath away from Anthony's bare chest where the blue glow of his magic was stained green, but not in a disfiguring way, not like a bruise, but like clear stream water over algae.

 

Anthony tangled his hand with Steven's and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “It means I am staying. I do not want to leave you, any of you. I... care very deeply for you all.”

 

“Thank God,” Steven breathed and fairly leapt at him, pulling him into his arms.

 

Natasha attempted to look untouchable, yet it was too late. Anthony had seen the dampening of her eyes before she had masked it. Clinton saw it as well and gently pulled her into his arms.

 

It felt like barely a moment later that Steven thrust him away and glowered at him.

 

“That was reckless of you, reckless and stupid,” Steven hissed.

 

“And it _worked_ ,” Anthony snapped back. “Admittedly, I had not a clue what I was doing or that you were alive, yet it worked and Robert's curse is broken and the other unicorns are free.”

 

“What curse? Wait, you admit to having _no clue_ what you were doing!”

 

“And to saving your arse, thank you!”

 

“You two really are in love,” Natasha drawled. Clinton was drooping suspiciously in the sand, as if he had been harmed grievously. “I wish the best for the both of you.”

 

Anthony huffed, but did not leave his place in Steven's hands. It was Natasha who reached out and helped Steven to his feet as Clintonmanaged to slowly remove his cloak and drag it over Anthony's naked form.

 

“Where do we go now?” Clinton wheezed, bent over his nether regions protectively.

 

“Back to the castle of-” Steven noticed the blank spot where the castle had once stood for the first time. There was sadness in his face before it passed quickly, and Anthony belatedly remembered that King Ross had been the closest Steven had had to a father. He did not draw attention to it, and neither did Clinton or Natasha. “There is always time for an adventure,” he mended. He curled one arm around Anthony's shoulders and pulled him close, so Anthony could believe that the knight was not too furious with him.

 

Steven's hand scratched Anthony's scalp and his eyes followed the motion of his fingers. A sadness entered his eyes. “The brown is gone,” he told Anthony. “And I can no longer see my reflection in your eyes.”

 

“What do you see?” Anthony asked, holding his gaze.

 

“The wilderness,” Steven answered honestly. “And I fear that, despite your words, I can never compare to it.”

 

“You could,” Anthony denied. “Never doubt that. I am not who I was,” Anthony told him. “It is not as important to me now as it had been.”

 

“This morning, it had been all you ever wanted,” Natasha said from behind him.

 

“He was given love,” Clinton reasoned. “Mortal love. And he gave immortal love in return. There's no comin' back from that.”

 

Steven's arms were immoveable around his waist, as if he feared that this would be the moment Anthony would become a unicorn once more and join his kind.

 

It was for naught, because he stayed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the movie (not the novel, I have not read it yet) 'The Last Unicorn'. I am deplorable at developing relationships. I watched this movie last night with my nephews and suddenly knew that I had to write about it. It has been a favorite of mine since I was a child.
> 
> Have a lovely day.


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